from A.W. Tozer

There seems to be a great throng of professing Christians in our churches today whose
total and amazing testimony sounds like this: "I am thankful for God's plan of sending Christ to the cross to save me from hell. ...Surely we know the Bible well enough to be able to answer that: God's highest purpose in the redemption of sinful humanity was based in his hope that we would allow him to reproduce the likeness of Jesus Christ in our once-sinful lives!"

 "I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored or turned off by worship is not ready for heaven."

A.W. Tozer

As for myself, I have learned to talk back to [the devil] on this score.

 I say, “Yes, Devil, sin is terrible – but I remind you that I got it from you! And I remind you, Devil, that everything good – forgiveness and cleansing and blessing – everything that is good I have freely received from Jesus Christ!”

 Brethren, we have been declared “Not guilty!” by the highest court in all the universe. It is good to know that on the basis of grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, he trusts him as though he had never sinned.

A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. (Proverbs 12:3)

 I love A.W. Tozer, my brother in the Fellowship of the Burning  Heart… though he’s often hard to read because of how convicted I usually feel afterward. One of the best collections of his is entitled, The Root of the Righteous. It is well worth getting and reading… and then reading again. By the way, it was first published in 1955. (That fact will explain why he’s often called a modern-day prophet.)

 Here are a few quotes from the first chapter, also entitled, The Root of the Righteous…
 
One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit.

 Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear.

 [Impatient Christians today] imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion.

 The bough that breaks off from the tree in a storm may bloom briefly and give to the unthinking passerby the impression that it is a healthy and fruitful branch, but its tender blossoms will soon perish and the bough itself wither and die. There is no lasting life apart from the root.

 Much that passes for Christianity today is the brief, bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its
season. But the deep laws of life are against it. Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of true spiritual life are prophetic signs which go unheeded.

 A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.

 In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you’re among them.

Words of Encouragement for The Fellowship of the Burning Heart
from A.W. Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God
Chapter 1: Following Hard After God

 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me. (Psalm 63:8)

 “Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.” [Prevenient Grace is a wonderful John "Wesleyism"]

 “We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.”

 “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.”

 “We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. …but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.”

 “The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.”

 “You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in his image we have within us the capacity to know him.” … The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God, It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.”

 “To have found God and still to pursue him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”